Label feeding machines have been made in the past having rolls of labels adhered to a backing strip by pressure-sensitive adhesive, and intermittently feeding the label-bearing strip to peeling means where the backing strip is drawn backward off the labels to a drive roll and a rewind roll to permit the labels to be attached to containers being fed along a line. The path of the label-bearing strip from the supply roll to the peeling edge, and the path of the label-free strip back to the feed roll and rewind roll formed a V-space, thus providing a compact arrangement. Those machines had the disadvantage that a considerable down time was required a number of times per day to replace the depleted roll of labels.
To reduce this problem, I initially developed equipment to which I annexed a supplemental roll of labels held on a spindle adjacent the primary supply roll. The leader on that supplemental roll was drawn out into the V-space along the path of the primary label-bearing strip and held by a vacuum block adjacent, but out of contact with, that label-bearing strip. An air cylinder pressure device, which was located opposite the vacuum block and on the other side of the primary label-bearing strip, was actuated by a photoelectric device located downstream of that air cylinder. That photoelectric device sensed when the last label on the backing strip of the primary label-bearing strip had passed that device; and it caused the air cylinder to press the label-free tail of the primary label-bearing strip against an adhesive strip at the leading end of the supplemental label-bearing strip. Then a release was operated on the air cylinder so the supplemental label-bearing strip was then fed to the labelling line of bottles or the like to be labeled.
This equipment was put into experimental operation on the line at the plant of my employer more than a year ago. Its operation had problems, however. The sensing means of the photoelectric device had to be a delayed action type to prevent its responding to the small gap on the backing strip between successive labels. Moreover, when a label happened to be entirely missing from the backing strip, the resulting gap was long enough to permit the photoelectric device to work and thereby cause the leading end of the supplemental label-bearing strip to be spliced onto the middle of the primary label-bearing strip. Also, if the primary label-bearing strip broke, or if the label feeding machine was stopped longer than usual (which can occur for a number of reasons), at a time when a gap between labels was in register with the photoelectric device, the leading end of the supplemental label-bearing strip would be spliced to the middle of the primary label-bearing strip. Furthermore, that equipment had the disadvantage that the photoelectric device had to sense the difference between the light that could be transmitted through the translucent backing strip and ambient or scattered light.
I continued seeking ways to overcome the problems of the machine, and finally within the past year overcame them. I moved the photoelectric device to the position illustrated herein so that it is sensitive to the absence of any strip, and hence responds to the passing of the label-bearing strip from its supporting core. The passing of the tail end of the label-bearing strip beyond the photoelectric device occurs sufficiently far back so the tail end of that strip is yet within range of the pressure device at the time the pressure device works to splice the primary and supplemental strips.
The present arrangement thus overcomes the problems of the earlier experimental parts of the development. Also, it has produced a very compact arrangement and one that can be added as by a kit to existing older machines that have been sold without the supplemental splicing device.
It is recognized that splicing devices have been employed for tapes and the like in the past such as U.S. Pat. Nos. to Mosburger 4,116,399, to Romagnoli 4,172,564, to Giles 3,306,801, to Wendt 3,586,006 and to Catzen 3,489,628, to Shearon 3,891,158, and to others in the same classes and subclasses. However, none of these is as compact or as fully automatic as the present one.